


The Merriest

by sakurasencha



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurasencha/pseuds/sakurasencha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin's version of the "missed opportunity."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Merriest

**The Merriest**

 

In a land marked by kingdoms, and in one of these a town, runs a street where lies an inn made warm by hearth and the laughter of a rousing band of men.

  
The townsfolk call them merry.

  
And among them sits their leader, the lion heart whose voice above all rings bravest and truest as they drink their fair share, recounting tales of the deeds well done in the forest none dare enter.

 

“Have you ever notched an arrow?” he says low and bold to the crowded room. “Let if fly into another man’s heart?”

  
He takes a long drink amidst the riveted silence and explains the certainty in that razor tip, the finality in the hollow thud as it sinks through armor and flesh.   _Death a fait accompli_ , he thinks with another swig, like the morning when she woke and complained of a cough.

  
“Barmaid? Another round!”

  
With a fresh drink in hand he spins another yarn. Oh, but they love to hear him speak. He could wax all night with nary a complaint on the _lese majesty_ committed in the name of justice.  

  
“Two chest-fulls of gold we retrieved from the nobles. Their coffers wept that night, but the village children went to bed with full bellies.”  

  
Applause at that. “Hear hear!” Stories of comeuppance are always received with relish and fanfare. The thrill intoxicates. They forget the dangers of being an outlaw, a hunted one. Forget how it might one day end in a freshly dug grave planted over with lilies.

  
He tips back his head with a hearty draught. And if he ever tires of speaking he has only to give that mysterious smile and tell them, “one for another day,” and quietly return to nursing his drink, the second or third or fourth, the count long lost and the only certainty that it will not be his last.

  
With the ebb of his voice comes the rush of white noise, murmuring and arguing, clinking cups and vagrants milling forever in and out through the door, opening and closing, through the dense fog of drink hearing nothing but his disconsolate thoughts.

  
And then sharply: the certain thud of the door.

  
Robin rises abruptly. He spins to look behind him, heart afloat. But no one stands at the precipice. No one has entered, the foyer bare.

  
His ears have deceived him. Nothing is certain. So he slowly sinks back down and returns to the table, resumes his march with a merry smile, and the dark bottom of a stein.


End file.
